June 17th, 2012
10:19PM
It is hardly the marathon Steven and Loki had engaged in, but there is a pleasant ache in Loki's thighs from being spread wide upon the bed, and he gently rubs his red wrists, feeling where the makeshift bondage had dug into his skin – so much stronger than it ought have been, seiðr-strong. Stephen is lying on his side beside him, his chin rested upon the heel of one of his hands, and he is watching Loki as if Loki is some especially pleasant piece of art.
Yes, with the session in the fjords earlier on, Loki is more than forgiving of Stephen Strange's comparative lack of stamina – he's only human, after all.
"You're freezing," Stephen murmurs quietly. Loki is sprawled on his belly, his face pressed into the pillow he has gripped between his arms, and Stephen's scarred fingers draw a path down the length of Loki's spine, as if tracing paint upon canvas, just for the pleasure of feeling the way the oil has dried in ridges and shifts. Then, he traces Loki's spine again. Loki can positively feel his frown as he shifts closer, kneeling alongside Loki, and now both his hands trace the length of Loki's spine, pressing hard enough to feel the individual elements of the spinal column.
"I do hope that's leading to a massage," he says dryly.
"How many vertebrae do you have?"
"Oh, Stephen, please," Loki begs, tonelessly, his voice entirely flat. "Such talk will drive me wild with desire." Stephen's fingers press against the thin bones, individually, and Loki sighs. "Don't count them. Around seventy."
"Around?"
"Sixty eight," Loki says, and Stephen lets out a low, amused sound. He shifts, and Loki feels the weight of Stephen's warm, magic-tingling body against his own, the weight of his lightly-muscled form settling upon the considerable cushion of Loki's backside. Loki can feel his cock, wiped clean with a cloth and now soft and heavy, rest against his lower back. The size of that had most certainly been a surprise, but Loki's taken bigger.
"Why so many?"
"Get off me, and I'll show you." Stephen's low laugh echoes off the modern, sleek designs that are carved into his walls, and Loki groans softly as Stephen's palms slide from his waist up the length of his back, the scarred heels of them digging into Loki's muscled form.
"I thought you wanted a massage?" Stephen purrs, his breath hot against the back of Loki's head as he leans down, ghosting through his hair, and his fingernails dig into Loki's shoulders, drawing a short grunt of sound out of him as the tired muscle is pressed upon.
"I suppose I might be convinced to accept one," Loki replies. "But…"
"But?" Loki sits up, resting his forearms on the too-soft fabric of the mattress. "I did… Wonder." He can feel Stephen's eyebrow raise even though he cannot see his face, and he feels the anticipation radiate from the younger sorcerer's body like so much electricity. "Dimensional transitways."
"You struggle with them," Stephen murmurs. His tone is somewhat smug.
"I shall teach you to silversmith if you teach me to better my portals."
"Oh, the great Loki Bölson," Stephen whispers into his ear, and he lets a little power creep into his voice, echoing through the words like a weight of seiðr. Loki hisses as he shivers, feeling Stephen's fingers trace unknowable symbols over the flesh of his shoulders, each of them sending tingling bites and tingles over his skin, "asking me, the Sorcerer Supreme, for tutelage?"
"I will tear your heart from your chest as it yet beats, and devour your soul and title alike," Loki murmurs. "I've done it before."
"Oh, Loki, please," Stephen replies, his voice smooth and his tongue dancing over the silver bar through the shell of Loki's ear, making him quake. "Such talk will drive me wild with desire." Stephen's cock is growing hard again: Loki can feel the stiffness of its weight against the lower part of his spine, feel the wetness at its head.
"Perhaps it says something about you," he hisses out as Stephen's fingers dig into the back of his neck, massaging roughly at the knotted muscle there, "that you so enjoy to be threatened."
"Perhaps," Stephen assents. He leans in closer, dragging his mouth down the length of Loki's spine, his tongue tracing the thin, inhuman vertebrae, and Loki lets out a shuddering moan at the very heat of it, flooding the rest of his body as it plays over sensitive nerve endings. "You know, I didn't realise it before…" He shifts down, marginally, gracelessly, until he is straddling Loki's thighs instead of his backside, and his hands fist easily in the meat of it, his fingers digging into the flesh, and Loki hisses, pressing his face into his hands. "This? Positively juicy. Like a peach." Cold blood is bursting in Loki's cheeks, and his breathing quickens, but he says naught to dissuade the other man, even as his fingers dip between the cleft of Loki's backside, thumb playing over the open wink of his back entrance.
"Don't be obscene," he says, unconvincingly.
"Me? Obscene? I've not one of these." And Stephen's hand smacks hard over Loki's left buttock, making him jolt on the bed. "This is obscenity."
"Let's go again."
"Ooh, let's."
June 17th, 2012
05:43PM
"Drowning your sorrows, huh?" Rhodey asks, and Steve looks up, grinning at Tony and Rhodey both as they come and slide into seats beside him.
"Something like that," Steve says. "The drink doesn't do much. You drinking?" His gaze flits to Tony, who looks levelly back.
"Yeah," Tony says, tapping the bar with his MIT ring. "That a problem?" Tony Stark is an alcoholic. Steve knows it like he knows anything – Tony is an alcoholic, like his father was an alcoholic, and like a Hell of a lot of other rich boys with issues are alcoholics. Tony's lips are pressed together, his gaze fixated on Steve's face.
"Nah," Steve says, quietly, and Tony sits down beside him.
"Where's the boy wonder?" Rhodey asks, and Steve glances at his phone.
"Alaska," he says.
"Alaska?" Tony repeats, staring uncomprehendingly at him. "Why's he in Alaska?"
"He's mining for silver."
"You messing with us?" Rhodey asks, and Steve shakes his head.
"Yeah, that's what I said," he mutters, giving an easy nod of his head. He sips a his whiskey, rolling the heat of it on his tongue, and then he says, "He said something about needing new jewellery, making his own.
"Silver isn't that expensive," Tony says, running his hand through his hair and looking thoughtful. "I coulda just bought him some." It rankles with Steve, for just a second – Tony's solution to everything is to just buy something, and yet he knows it comes to it, Tony doesn't mean badly by it. Steve is just… In a bad mood.
"Knowing how picky he is, it probably wouldn't have been up to his standard," Rhodey says, not unkindly. He says it simply, factually. He's a good man, loyal to a fault, Steve knows, but they share a lot in common – he and Rhodey are both officers more than they're just soldiers. They both know how to give commands, and they both know how to take them. "He likes to do stuff himself."
"That's pretty relatable," Tony says as he takes a sip of his scotch, and he flicks his fingernail against the glass, making it ring softly. "He gonna be okay here, you think? In the end?" Steve feels himself frown, feels his brows knit themselves together, and he sets his jaw. It's not an unreasonable question, but nor is it one that he feels he knows the answer to, and that frustrates him. Thor had said Loki seems happy here, and Loki had said he thought he could be happy here, but…
"I don't know," Steve says quietly. "I don't think anybody can really be happy tied up like he is. It's not right."
"But you can't let him go," Rhodey says quietly. Steve and Tony both look to him: Rhodey's expression is solemn, and serious. "This is a sentencing. Maybe once he's reformed, sure, but… I don't know how you'd know when that was."
"Thor talks about it like it'll only end when I die," Steve says. Tony whistles, lowly.
"What, there's not like… I don't know. A Calypso, I release you from your human bonds kinda option?" Tony asks, and Steve squints at him.
"A what?"
"Pirates of the Caribbean," Rhodey says. "You'll love it. Ain't you writing this stuff down?"
"Not today," Steve mutters. "But— You mean, what, is there a reverse ritual? Not that Odin mentioned. I kinda figures he wants Loki to remain tied up for as long as possible. There must be something, but… You're right, Rhodey. After two months, we can't just let him go. We'll come back to it. How's your week been?"
"Don't talk to me about it," Rhodey mutters, shaking his head. "My sister's in town, so I took her out to lunch, but God, she is pregnant as Hell. Had one of those cravings, you know? We walked through thirty restaurants before we picked somewhere." Tony laughs, nudging Rhodey in the shoulder, and Rhodey shakes his head, knocking back a little of the drink.
"When's she due?" Steve asks, grinning a little. Rhodey looks fond and affectionate, and his smile is proud.
"Three more months," he says, and he says, "God, she works so hard, Jeanette, and she's finally started to, you know, relax. She wants to do the whole work-from-home mom thing."
"How's her wife?" Tony asks, and Rhodey laughs.
"Pretty stressed out. I've never seen Celine so freaked out, honestly, but… I dunno. They're gonna be good moms, I think." Steve's lips quirk into the smallest smile, and he feels himself sink away from the conversation a little. God, he'd always vaguely envisaged a future with Peggy, but… Two women. Two men. They can have kids now. Get married. Welcome to the future, Captain America.
"Yeah, I want kids," Tony is saying, shoving Rhodey in the chest and making Rhodey laugh. "What, you don't?"
"I don't know," Rhodey says, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm excited to have a little niece or nephew, but… Kids? I guess I don't think I'd make much of a dad. You, though. You'd love it." Tony's lips curve into a small, slightly distant smile, and Steve can see by the faraway look in his eyes that he's thinking about Howard. Howard, who by all accounts, was a shitty dad, in the end.
"You'd be a great father," he says. Tony glances at him, his blue eyes slightly wide. "Really."
"Thanks, Cap," he says. "Means a lot." Steve holds up his glass, and the three of them clink their whiskeys together. Steve falls into deep thought once again.
June 17th, 2012
11:03PM
"You drop that pizza, Rogers, and I swear to God—"
"I'm not gonna drop the pizza!" Steve insists, even though he is juggling three pizzas in one hand, balancing them against his hip, and holding two bottles of soda in the other hand. He backs up slowly into the elevator, and Rhodey leans in to press the button for him.
"I'll race you up the stairs," he hears Tony say as the doors ding closed, and he laughs as he hears Rhodey and Tony's sneakers squeak and slap as they both begin the run up the stairs. God, the two of them… They're like brothers.
Steve's mind immediately flits to Bucky. Bucky, laughing as he stands back to back with Steve in a dirty back-alley; Bucky, sternly telling him to quit trying to enlist in the army; Bucky, screaming as he falls from a train on a cliffside.
Steve's stomach feels sick, and he is grateful to step out of the tight, cloying box of the elevator.
June 17th, 2012
11:03PM
"Show me, then," Stephen says, quietly. He holds a glass of vodka between his hands, and he watches Loki carefully, sitting on the edge of the bed, as Loki closes his eyes, and focuses. A dimensional transitway is, at its core, a simple process. One is creating a line of seiðr between Location A and Location B: that line travels through the very fabric of the universe, creating an anchor at the other end, and then, one simply… Holds the line. The universe itself continues its constant motion, and one is dragged along the line of magic to one's new destination, without fuss or bother.
Theoretically.
Loki teleports across the room, and immediately groans. His head spins with the sudden movement, and he clutches at the side of his temple, letting out a harsh little sound.
"How long have you been using dimensional transitways?" Stephen asks, watching him carefully. He makes no effort to stand up to support Loki, nor to ensure he does not fall. So much for romantic concern.
"Perhaps three hundred years. I use them as little as possible, for… Obvious reasons." Slowly, his vision steadies itself, and he inhales, slowly, feeling the ache in his lungs. "I used to struggle with simply getting from one point to another – often I would end up falling into pocket dimensions, or through the gaps between universes…"
"You're Splinching yourself," Stephen says. The Allspeak takes the word, tastes it, and spits a vague, half-formed image into Loki's mind – a limb left behind after one teleports, a spray of blood, a loss of organs…
"What?"
"It's a term from Harry Potter," Stephen says. "Haven't you read it?"
"I don't read fiction," Loki says, doing his best to keep the majority of the derision out of his voice, but Stephen laughs anyway.
"Of course you don't," he murmurs, tone full of condescension. "You're leaving parts of yourself behind."
"I believe I'd notice if I left a kidney on the other side of the room," Loki begins, but Stephen holds up one scarred hand, shaking his head slowly.
"It's your magic," he says, patiently. "You're not trusting the connection, and you're leaving some of your seiðr behind you, cutting it off as you move. That's why you feel so dizzy afterwards – you might as well be leaving part of your soul behind, given how intrinsic the magic is to your body. The dizziness passes once you've pulled yourself back together." Loki frowns, focusing on the other side of the room, and this time he turns his focus deep within his core, and he phases across the room. There, the dizziness, the spinning head, but he can feel precisely what Stephen means, feels the web of his seiðr patchy and malformed, like a spider's web caught in a high wind. Threads snap, leaving him unsteady, and he breathes in slowly.
"The disadvantage," Loki murmurs quietly, "of the self-taught. One works oneself into such bad habits. When I learnt the lyre anew, having taught myself, my tutor had to slap my wrists to correct my pose."
"I wouldn't slap your wrists," Stephen murmurs, his gaze shifting downwards, and Loki blows an icy wind in his direction, making him shudder as he hurriedly wipes off the icy pieces that form on his hairy chest. "I will never get tired of that."
"What?"
"You not using any spells," Stephen replies, leaning forward and putting his chin upon his hands. "Even my shorthand is done with small symbols, scattered words here and there…"
"There are advantages and disadvantages to each method," Loki says diplomatically. Barely anybody performs magic as he and Amora the Enchantress choose to: even performing the most basic of magics takes year upon year of practice, training one's body to take in clouds of magic and form it with thought and desire alone. It is best suited to immortals, but in the end… Once one invites this much magic into one's body? One becomes immortal all the same.
"How many spells do you know?" Strange asks. Loki glances to him, feeling the magic within his body, envisaging it bleeding through his tissues, his organs, his bones, as he focuses on his next dimensional phase.
"Off the top of my head? A few hundred, perhaps."
"And yet I can't do any magic the way you do magic."
"My way is harder than learning spells," Loki says, and he grasps tight at the line of seiðr, feeling the universe shift around him, feeling it come to a stop. He feels his magic within him, thick and fluid, and he exhales, softly. A smile comes to his lips. "Spells are… Like letters. A, B, C, D… Established codes that follow a simple pattern, an alphabet that is known hither and thither. In different combinations, those letters change, creating infinite combinations, but in the end, one needs only learn 26 individual letters. My way is more like… Detailed pictograms, where there is no code at all. One draws what one wishes upon the air anew every day, and the magic understands only so long as your thought and will are clear enough."
"Beautiful," Stephen says. Loki glances at him to check that his gaze rests not upon Loki's backside, but Stephen is looking at his face, his stare intent. "You've been a teacher before?"
"Yes," Loki says mildly. "For many years I lectured on the planet of Koom, in advanced mathematics and applied physics." He phases across the room again, but his concentration is ill-focused, and the slightest haze of dizziness overtakes him – he will be forced to practise the spell again and again, until bringing all of his magic with him becomes habit.
Such is the way.
"What happened?" Stephen asks.
"You needn't be so grave in your tone," Loki murmurs. As he speaks, he moves forward, sliding his hands onto the younger man's shoulders, sliding his hands over the scars there. Car crashes. Such messy things. "Thor came for me. I had been gone forty years at that point: he decided it was time for me to return."
"Forty years?" Stephen repeats, softly. "Did you do that often?"
"Fairly often," Loki murmurs. "I was never well-suited to Asgard. The people there disliked me, and I fitted ill with the culture there. Every now and then, I would leave. Go elsewhere. Live a different life, be a different person. I am worshiped on twenty-seven planets, as I told you, but not under the same name, the same self. Eventually, however…" Loki trails off, feeling the thickness of a particular piece of scar tissue beneath his fingers, feeling the smoothness of it, without pore, without hair. "I would return. Sometimes, Thor would come for me. He cannot Skywalk, as I can, but Mjolnir will take him anywhere he pleases, if he wishes to go. Most times, I would go back of my own volition, in the end."
"That sounds very lonely," Stephen says. There is no pity on his face, merely a quiet curiosity, an intermingled interest. It is almost freeing, to be able to speak so freely, and be met with no pity at all. "Going back to a place where you're hated every time. Why go back? Why not just refuse?"
"I thought, at the time, that Asgard was where I belonged, that I was going against my nature by fleeing it so fervently. That I was fleeing the truth. Little did I realise it was yet another false life, amongst dozens." Loki's hands slide over Stephen's jaw, up to his cheeks, and Stephen turns his head, kissing Loki's hand. "Multiplicity of self… It is not uncommon."
"How many gods are you, in the end?"
"Fifteen."
"Sounds pretty uncommon to me," Stephen mutters, whistling under his breath, and Loki smiles. "Tell me about them?"
"No," Loki murmurs quietly. "I'll tell you about one."
"Tell me…" Stephen's hands slide around Loki's buttocks, pulling him into his lap. It seems that for the time being, Stephen has forgotten entirely about being taught to smith silver, and wants to be told a bedtime story? Well. Loki has been asked for worst things. "The one with the most worshipers. How many?"
"Around twelve billion." Stephen's eyes widen, and Loki laughs, quietly, leaning forward and dropping his weight against Stephen's chest, pinning the other sorcerer beneath him, so that they are chest to chest. "F'yan – God of Truth."
"Of truth? What a change."
"Truth and lies aren't so different, in the end," Loki murmurs, and he begins to speak.
June 18th, 2012
2:21AM
"Cap! Cap!" There's a hand patting his cheek, and Steve is up on his feet, coughing as he chokes on some of his own spit. Clint is standing over him, sliding his vest onto his shoulders, and he says urgently, "We gotta go, man! Wanda's had to go out to Philly, helping the X-Factor with some shoot-out, but there's quakes happening out in Greenwich."
"Quakes?" Steve asks, and he's already on his feet and jogging down the corridor, stripping off his clothes without shame in front of Clint and pulling on his suit. He'd fallen asleep on the couch some way through his conversation with Rhodey and Tony, and neither of them are to be seen – they're probably still awake, down in the lab.
"The epicentre is out in Greenwich Village, around on the main avenue," Clint says, turning the tablet in his hands to show Steve. He sees the blipping circle coming out from Greenwich Avenue, and his eyes shift on the map. Bleecker Street isn't too far away from Greenwich Avenue, and Stephen Strange's impossible mansion is right fucking there.
"Shit," he whispers. "Call Loki!" He slides his hand beneath his desk, pulling out his helmet and his shield, and Clint stares at him.
"Uh," he says. "I… Can't?"
"What do you mean—" Clint is pointing at the hearing aid curled around his ear, and Steve winces.
"Right, right, sorry— Shit, where's my phone?"
June 18th, 2012
3:09AM
Loki's eyes open.
Freezing on the bed, he stays completely still, his tired eyes staring around the room. Something had woken him, but what? He reaches out with his seiðr by instinct, throwing it out in a web of explorative threads, and beside him, Stephen glances up from the book in his hands – the book Loki had given him in exchange for his eyes, on the concept of magical sentience. It purrs quietly in his lap, pages fluttering as he strokes over their gilded edges.
"Are you alright?" he asks.
"Something's wrong," Loki says, pushing himself up to sit. There. The building itself isn't truly here, buried as it is in a pocket dimension behind the façade that is placed upon the actual street, but outside, Loki can feel the tremors in the street below. In moments, his armour is bleeding onto his body, an icy blue that clings to his body and pads out the curves of his waist and hips.
"Oh, shit," Stephen says, and when Loki turns, Stephen is holding out his phone. A dozen messages are flashing over its screen, each denoting a missed call, and another text, and Loki hisses out a sound, grabbing the phone and calling Steven back as he rapidly descends the stairs without his feet so much as touching their wooden veneer, knowing that gravity and friction will only slow him down.
"Loki!" Steven says as he answers the call, his tone irritable and his breathing heavy. In the background, Loki can hear explosions and the crumble of stone and roadway, and he speeds his way toward Stephen's front door – Norns, why must the man's home be so obscenely labyrinthine? "Where've you been?"
"I was asleep, you heathen," Loki snaps back, "Do you want to tell me why the ground is tremoring verily beneath my feet?"
"You'll see once you're outside," Steve says darkly, and Loki glances at the phone, throwing a burst of seiðr from his hand to open the door before he reaches it, and then he is running out onto Bleecker Street, feeling the tarmac crumbling and quaking beneath his feet. He vanishes the phone, running upon the very air to bring himself above the buildings, and face to face with… Something.
It's some manner of gelatinous lifeform, massive and giving off a huge amount of heat, radiating outward. At least fifty feet high and burning deepest red with magma, the monster is melting the very buildings it touches, and Loki can hear harsh screams being cut short. He scans the vicinity, and he sees the others: Stark is pouring water down from some great vat, but the stuff turns to steam before it even this the monster, coming away uselessly as vapour.
Rogers is barking orders as he, Barton and Romanov take civilians out of the way of the monster, rushing them away: Loki can hear him – he is speaking into his earpiece, one of which Loki is meant to have, but alas… Does not.
This is what he gets for sleeping away from home, it seems.
"Excuse me!" he calls over the chaos, the smoking buildings: the monster hears him not. Loki's web of seiðr is spread out on his every side – he can feel Stark, Rogers, Romanov, Barton… No Maximoff, the only one that would be remotely useful in this situation, and Banner—
Banner is not to be found.
Loki feels a cold determination in his belly, and he steps closer to the monster. Its radiating heat is hot upon his freezing flesh, making him feel as if he is burning from the very inside, but he steps closer nonetheless, closer, "Excuse me!"
No response.
Well, there comes a time where manners do one more ill than good. Loki coils his magic within him, and when he speaks next, it is with the deepest power he can draw upon, billions upon billions of believers strengthening his tongue, and he growls, "OI!" The sound of it echoes across the entire city, heading outwards with the force of a physical shockwave, and after it, there is complete silence: the monster freezes, but so too do all the screaming, fleeing people. For a long, long second, all his frozen.
And then the monster's head (if head it can be called) swivels to look at Loki. It has one great eye, looking very bit like one of the magma caves he and Thor had traversed as a child, and its gaping maw is slick and bubbling with lava.
"What, pray, do you think you're doing?" The god voice remains all-encompassing, spreading out from him in a whim, and each of the Avengers is frozen, staring at him. Loki looks at this monster, his gaze impassive, his elbow rested upon his palm, his hand loosely held up beside his head, magic coiling ready between the fingers. "Don't you know this planet is under my protection?"
What poppycock.
The monster roars, hot air hitting Loki like a solar flare, but he remains unflinching, even as his very flesh screams out its protestations. It understands him, that much is clear, and Loki can feel its impact upon his web of magic, feel its taint.
"What, you think I'd believe you don't understand me? You are of demonic origin, are you not? A demon on the streets of Greenwich, why, how inappropriate." That makes the monster shift slightly, a quake running through its molten form, and Loki thickens the weight of the ball of seiðr he is drawing together in his hand. "Retreat, now, and I shall not see fit to end you."
The monster surges, and Loki squares his shoulders as its great, magmatic maw comes to swallow him whole.
June 18th, 2012
3:14AM
Steve stares, uncomprehending, as the monster bites Loki out of the air, snatching him as if he's nothing, and he can hear the pound of his own heart, the rush of his own blood in his ears, as all comes silent. The monster is silent, its ugly mouth closed and its lips of hard rock melting into one another as it chuckles lowly, the sound like two mountains grinding against one another.
And then it freezes.
Its single eye widens, then squints tightly, its entire body stiff and still, and then—
"Jesus Christ," he hears Tony say over the comm, as a body bursts out of the top of the lava monster like a silver stone bursting from a volcano: rock and droplets of lava fly in every direction, but the figure… Isn't Loki. "Who the Hell is that?"
"Christ knows," Steve says, and he stares at the guy as— What, is that sand? – seems to let him soar on the air: he's ten feet tall, nearly twice Loki's size, with broad shoulders, and he wears brown trousers of some thick and heavy sacking-cloth, his chest, but his body… The guy is made of glass. Actual, honest-to-God glass, and the light shines through him as he rides the wave of sand down, cleaving the lava monster in two with the sword that's almost as big as he is.
The monster is screaming, the sounds high and echoing, but even from here, Steve can feel its heat is beginning to withdraw, and he says, "Stark… Go back to pouring water down. Barton, see if you can take out another hydrant. Nat, keep getting the civilians out of the way. Banner, how're you?"
"Burnt," Banner mutters. His voice is laboured.
Steve stares as the stranger makes quick work of the monster, cutting him down to size with that huge sword that seems to be made of black stone, and it takes—
God. It takes minutes.
They'd made barely a dent in the thing, but this guy is just shredding him, and as he cuts each piece apart, they grow cold, dropping to the ground in rubble and black stone. The thing is half the size, then a quarter, then it's barely the size of a dog, squealing and shrieking as the glass man walks toward it.
His sword at his hip, trailing a sharp line through the cracked tarmac of what is left of the Greenwich Avenue road, he grabs the monster, his hand right inside its heat, and Steve wonders what temperatures the guy could possibly be made to withstand.
The only reason there are so few people dead right now is because of how slowly lava moves.
The glass man holds the monster in his mighty hand, and as Steve steps forward, he can hear the demon – that's what Loki had called it, right? – squeaks and yells and cries. When the glass man clenches his fist, it turns to dust and sand upon the ground.
"Steven," the glass man says, turning his head. Barely ten feet away from one another, now, Steve can see the guy's face: his eyes are like sandstorms, a mess of darkness and swirling colour amidst the transparent crystal of the rest of his face, and his tongue is a literal spark, burning in his mouth.
"Who the Hell are you?" Steve demands, taking a step closer, his shield gripped in his hand. The man stares at him, impassive.
"I am Geren of the Highwastes," he says. His voice is like a thousand winds, distant and howling, and Steve shivers to hear it.
"Where's Loki?"
"Ah," Geren says, lowly. A small smile quirks his glassy lips. "You have not yet realised."
"Realised what?"
"You are Steven Rogers and Captain America alike, are you not? Both are you, and yet they remain indelibly separate." Steve's gaze trails from Geren's glassy head, to the great horns that come out from either side, down to his smooth, transparent chest, to the sacking clinging to his legs, to the obsidian sword at his side.
"You're… Loki?"
"No," Geren says. "I am Geren. Loki is me."
"Bring Loki back," Steve says, sharply, the order plain. "Now." There is a moment of hesitation. Geren's impassive expression, so devoid of feeling, is frozen for a second, and Steve feels a burst of fear in his chest – what, does this version of Loki not have to obey his orders? If that's the case—
But then Loki is right there, wearing his blue armour, his hair loose around his head. He doesn't wear the helmet any more, and Steve can't help but wonder why.
"We mustn't stand here, speaking casually," Loki says. "We must help rebuild, bring people to the hospitals."
"Here," Steve says, and he presses a small, black bud into Loki's hand – his comm connection, left in Avengers Tower. Loki nods his head, nods his understanding, and he takes to the air once more. For a long second, Steve stares after him, thinking of the way the monster had just crumbled in his palm…
But no, Loki is right.
People still need their help.
June 18th, 2012
1:18PM
The ice cream is organic, and it's more fruit than cream, with barely any sugar in it at all, which is maybe why Loki had agreed to try it. What he wouldn't agree to was to having the thing on a cone like everyone else, so he holds it in his little glass bowl, delicately eating it with a spoon, not getting any of the stuff on his face.
"You like it?" Tony asks.
"It's very cold," Loki says approvingly.
"I think that means yes," Nat says, and Loki smiles to himself, taking another bite of the stuff and swallowing it. Does it even melt in his mouth, Tony wonders? He doubts it. The guy is so cold, it probably just freezes more.
"Is this truly your tradition?" Loki asks, his gaze passing about the table. "You save the city, and then take time for lunch?"
"This isn't lunch," Tony says. "This is a snack. We'll get lunch after." Loki frowns at him, his thin lips twisting into the expression, and he tilts his head slightly to the side. The ice cream he'd gotten is… Weird. Pineapple, coconut and rum – not exactly a flavour combination Tony'd go for, but Loki seems to like it just fine.
Steve thunks heavily into the seat beside him, and Tony turns to look at him. "You sure he's gonna be okay?" he asks Loki, and Tony glances from Steve to the other man. Loki slowly nods his head.
"The seiðr is more than his body is accustomed to, but it shall not harm him," he says quietly. "Doctor Banner will merely need to sleep for twelve hours or so, and he shall wake up quite healed. To repair all of the damage at once would merely place his body under undue stress, yet more than he has already suffered. The Hulk can withstand only so much." Loki reaches up, drawing his hand through his thick hair, and he looks tired.
"You didn't answer your phone," Steve says.
"I must have placed it on silent by mistake," Loki murmurs. "Do forgive me – I had no idea. It won't happen again." He seems to be genuine about it, and if Steve was annoyed, he backs down now, his expression quietly understanding. Loki looks guilty, and he takes the last scoop of his ice cream into his mouth, his throat shifting as he swallows, and then he sets the glass bowl down on the table. "You have questions, I imagine."
"Mr Glass Ass was a bit of a surprise, yeah," Tony says, taking a healthy lick of his chocolate swirl, and Loki interlocks his fingers, leaning forward and setting his elbows upon his knees. He seems quietly thoughtful, his eyes far away for a long few seconds.
"I… Have not been entirely honest as to who I am," he says, after an extended pause. "I am not, strictly speaking, Loki of Asgard. Or, more accurately, I am not only him. The explanation I used for Steven some hours ago was in the different between Captain America and Steve Rogers: each distinct, and discrete from one another. Each are him, but the two identities are very different." Loki taps his well-manicured fingers upon the table, his lips shifting as he tastes whatever words he wants to say next. Tony glances to Clint and Nat, who are watching in silence, and to Steve, whose expression is set. "I am worshiped on twenty-seven planets. Overall, my worship extends to… I don't know. Perhaps thirty or forty billion believers. It is hardly within my power to count them individually. But I am not worshiped on each of those planets as Loki, son of Odin. That title serves me only here, upon Midgard, as it does in the Nine Realms."
"You have other names," Steve says, slowly. "Other identities."
"Precisely," Loki agrees. "On Nakom, I am Geren of the Highwastes. On Koom, I am Knightsin, the Goddess of the Silver Blades. Across the Fon System, I am known by a handful of names, but most of all as F'yan, the God of Truth, and Storytelling. Each of these identities feels as real to me as that of Loki. I might tell you the primary events of my entire life, the relationships I have with the councils of individual gods, the memories that come with the title… But Loki is my prime self, if you will."
"What does that mean?" Nat asks, slowly. She narrows her eyes slightly as she looks at Loki, obviously trying to puzzle him out. "They feel as real to you? Does that mean they aren't real?"
"They are real," Loki says. "Godhood… It is a complex thing to explain. One's divinity is based on the belief one is imbued with: the devotion, the worship, adds to my identity as a figure, but it is ever changing. Simultaneously, for example, I know that I never met with a Jötunn named Skadi, and yet I remember my quest to make her laugh, that she might forgive me for the murder of her father. The memory is built by the force of my believers alone. It is simultaneously real, and ethereal. An echo from another reality." Tony takes a small bite of his cone, chewing it slowly. That's… Pretty damned wild.
"How many?" Steve asks. "How many people are you?"
"How many people? Dozens," Loki says. "I have lived as many men and women. Tutors, academics, millers, hunters, artists, tailors—"
"Soldiers?" Steve breaks in. It stops Loki in his tracks.
"No," he says. "Geren is the only soldier among me." God, that's freaky. He doesn't know why it's so weird, but hearing Loki use "me" in the plural is… Creepy. But Tony had heard Loki talking to Sam about his favourite Bible story – the Gerasene demoniac. My name is Legion, for we are many.
Jesus.
"As for gods," Loki says, stroking his fingers over his palms. "I am worshiped under fifteen identities."
"List them," Steve says.
"No," Loki says. Steve stares at him, for a long second.
"You wanna try that again?" he says, lowly, and Loki's lips twitch in irritation, almost showing a snarl.
"I will write them down for you," Loki says. "There's no sense in me listing them all simply to write them down la—"
"List them," Steve says, harshly. "Now." Tony glances at him, and he can see Steve's jaw is set, his blue eyes a swirl of deep thought and emotion, and he wonders why precisely he's so angry all of a sudden.
"F'yan. Motlordraugr, a mythic priest of funeral rites. Knightsin. Ixtar, a trickster spirit. Chaur, a great spider – Goddess of Motherhood, and— And Grief. Geren. K'io K'or'ar'lee – a patron of young mothers. Vespice, a great serpent that follows the river of the Lei Nebula. Aspling, the Storyteller, youngest of 1000 brothers. Ok, Delitti and Guril Yair, each worshiped on areas of Jafara. Then Wexxo Gast – the God of Passing Time, and finally, Saliso, the Skywalker of Rigel IV. And Loki. Me."
"Aren't they all you?" Tony asks, and Loki's brows furrow, hesitation showing on his face.
"I know it makes you uncomfortable," he says, in barely more than a whisper. "It doesn't seem natural, for somebody to be more than one person. Each of you would rather believe that they are merely masks I wear, false identities, characters that I play. The idea that all of them should equally be myself is unnerving to the very essence of your humanity." A beat passes. "Tell me I'm wrong, if you feel that I am." The four of them sit in silence, glancing at one another before each of them turns back to Loki, and Tony is uncomfortable with how easily Loki reads them, even while he remains kind of a mystery. Or… Mysteries.
"You're not wrong," Tony murmurs quietly. "It's a little creepy. But… It's you, Loki. It's no creepy than your pretty little face." Loki's lips twitch into a small smile, and he turns his gaze away from Tony, chuckling softly. It's the right thing to say, he thinks, because Loki relaxes slightly.
Steve is quiet. Tony looks at him, his gaze flitting over Steve's face, but Steve doesn't look angry any more. He looks tired, and Tony watches him as he says quietly, "The sand thing. You didn't write that down in your file."
"No," Loki says quietly. "I didn't expect to be anybody other than Loki in my time upon this planet: subsequently, I spoke only on my own skills, and not on those of my other selves."
"Are they all you, or not?" Steve asks, his tone slick. Loki looks down at the ground. "I thought so."
"It wasn't an intentional deception," Loki argues, tone bitter. "They are and they aren't me. I don't think of it as a cut-and-dry issue. You asked me for my skills, I laid them out upon the page. I filled a binder!"
"Fill fourteen more." Steve's tone is stern and quiet and serious, and he looks directly at Loki. He doesn't look at Clint, who is desperately focusing on his ice cream and seems to have shoved his hearing aids into his pocket, or at Nat, whose expression is a complete mask. What does Tony's own expression look like, he wonders? Something breaks in Loki's face, and Tony doesn't think he's imagining the shame on his face, the genuine upset.
"Yes, Captain," Loki says quietly, obediently, all but slumping in his seat. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Steve says quietly. "I'm not— Loki. It's not your fault. It's okay. But I need this stuff on the record." Loki bites his lower lip, worrying the skin there, and he swallows, his throat shifting as he does so. Loki gives a very slow nod of his head, and Steve says, quietly, "Why'd you make the shift?"
"I didn't mean to," Loki admits. "I'm a being of ice, Steven. I would have burnt to a cinder if I had remained in the form I had been – the shift was sudden, unconscious. It was an instinctive, self-protective measure."
"It happened before?" Steve asks, quietly.
"No," Loki murmurs. "But then, a demon of magma has never swallowed me into the incandescent heat of its stomach before." Tony does his best to stop himself from snorting, and Loki stares down at his hands, tracing the lines of his own tendons and knuckles. "It was the happenstance of a moment. It won't happen again."
"Who is he?" Nat asks. Her eyes are full of intrigue, leaning in closer as she keeps her gaze on Loki's face. It makes the most sense to her, Tony guesses, out of the rest of them. Natasha has worn lots of identities, even if she can't change the skin she wears like Loki can.
"Geren of the Highwastes," Loki whispers. His tone changes, somewhat, and Tony feels his heart beat a little faster in his chest as he watches him, rapt. Loki's hands come up, and magic begins to burst and spark between his palms, showing a desert expanse like a hologram over the table between them, and Tony glances around, just to see if anyone else in the little café is looking their way, but nobody seems to care. Sands slide over the desert's length, swirling and whistling in the wind, and a figure begins to walk through the sands.
He walks slowly, his broad shoulders bent toward the hiss of the sand, and at his side his greatsword trails through the sand behind him, leaving a line in the red sand's surface. He wears a thick, brown cloak, just like the trousers Loki – Geren – had worn earlier. "Once a shoulder, Geren now walks the Highwastes: the great desert across the Southern Pole of Nakom. Ever moving, ever walking. Nobody knows where his final destination will be. It is said that when the planet was yet morphing, yet becoming its own, the sun burned so very hot that the shifting sands of the desert were heated to glass, and so Geren came into being: his glowing tongue hosts the final spark of that old and ancient sun, and he is made of the finest glass there is." The figure in the desert pushes the hood back from his head, and Tony sees the tiny flame inside his transparent face, glowing where his tongue should be. He looks like he's made of pure, liquid crystal, his face and shoulders moving smoothly as he walks. "Lost travellers in the deserts of Nakom pray for Geren to take mercy on them: they pray for his line in the sand, and when that line appears, they follow it to their salvation."
The sands fade away, and Loki's hands are bare once more.
"How did that end up being you?" Tony asks, quietly.
"My two sons, Narfi and Valí, were murdered. Sigyn and I separated. I could not bear to be upon Asgard. It was one thing to be reviled, to be hated – it was another indeed to be pitied as I walked the streets of Asgard, as if those very people had not done worse to me in my time. I couldn't stand it. So I left. I had done so before, left Asgard behind and gone far, far abreast from the planet, many times. For half a century at a time, sometimes, I would abandon the Æsir and their false ways. This time, I needed… Solace, and solitude. I needed a place to meditate, but I could not stand to be still."
Tony glances to Steve, and he sees that the other man is utterly hypnotised, his gaze focused on the other man's face. For all the strictness Tony just saw, Steve looks at Loki as if he's the most beautiful he's ever seen, as if he's a statue, as if he's the greatest wonder of the world. There's something tragic about that.
"So I walked the Highwastes from end to end. The deserts stretch thousands upon thousands of miles, and so I walked them. When I crossed ways with other travellers, I would heal their ills, offer them directions. For thousands of years, I had been known as a storyteller, but I… I lacked the spirit for such things. I listened, instead. Offered counsel, if I was asked for it. Over time, as years went by, I became almost legendary. Why would a man walk from end of the desert to the other, eating nothing, drinking nothing? How could he do it? And so was born the divinity. The belief." Loki leans back into his seat, drawing his palm over his chin and his lips, and when he quietly sighs, Tony doesn't think he imagines the soft, icy whoosh of frost upon the air.
"So it's kind of like a chicken and egg thing," Nat says. "The believer and the believed in."
"Not exactly," Loki says. "It is both at once. And I am only ever a minor god, never a greater god, a creator. They follow different rules entirely, and I would never presume to believe that my existence is at all similar to that concept of, say, your Christian god, which is— Different indeed. I don't mean to imply blasphemy in my existence alone." It's weird. When Loki had come down back in May, he'd been as sarcastic and biting as all Hell, but Loki's… Respectful. Weirdly respectful. As if it's the only thing he knows how to do. Tony guesses that's where the whole Mr, Doctor, Captain thing came from in the first place, and the respect for religion… It's not exactly expected.
"Did it hurt you?" Steve asks in a very low tone, "Being him?"
"No," Loki murmurs, shaking his head. "No, no. Geren… He feels no pain. No emotion, really. He's quietly compassionate, and that is all. I walked the Highwastes for ninety-four years. It shaved away the worst parts of grief."
"Ninety-four years?" Tony repeats, staring at him. "Just… Walking up and down?"
"Just walking up and down," Loki confirms. "But after the death of Angrboða, I did something similar. I became a great rock, on the top of the mountain nearest to the city of Asgard, and I allowed myself to be washed down the mountainside with the flow of the river. Week by week, I was made smoother. Purified. I ended as a smooth pebble on the bed of the great lake."
"The sands were the same," Steve murmurs quietly. "Scraped the layers away."
"Yes," Loki agrees, slowly. "Until I was smooth as glass. And now that grief is a part of me, now, elevated to a singular voice, a face, an identity."
"Why a soldier?" Nat asks. Clint is wiping his face with a napkin, and Tony wonders if Nat'll explain the whole thing to him later, or if he's just happier not knowing. Who's to say?
"I don't know," Loki murmurs. "It was a staff, when I started, you know. I was a healer, a sage: I carried a staff loosely in my hand, trailing it in the ground behind me – I enjoyed the sensation of parting the sand beneath its touch, feeling its weight against my palm. Over time, it was believed that I carried a sword, and then, that I was a warrior in the last great war, some fifteen hundred years ago. And so a sword I had." Loki stands, slowly. "If you will excuse me – get lunch without me. I want to go back to Bleecker Street for an hour or so: I shall meet you again at the Tower. There is paperwork to complete, I imagine?"
"Yeah," Steve says quietly. "Damage reports, stuff like that." Tony half-expects him to tell Loki he can't go, that he needs to stick around, but he doesn't, and Loki gives him a small, polite bow of his head before he walks away.
"The thing he did… With that voice," Clint says. Even as he speaks, he is putting his hearing aids back in, and he wrinkles his nose slightly. "The… The big voice. The one that echoed."
"What about it?" Tony asks.
"I could hear it," Clint says. "Hear it in my chest."
"It was pretty scary," Steve murmurs, lowly. "He's… Pretty powerful. More powerful than I remember, sometimes."
"Ain't that the truth?" Tony says. For a long few moments, they sit in silence. Then, they get up to head in the direction of lunch.
June 18th, 2012
1:42PM
Stephen opens the door wearing a tunic of black, and he smiles as he sees Loki. "How did—" Stephen's face cracks to the side as Loki brings the back of his hand hard across it, so hard that the very bone lets out its protestation, and Stephen lets out a low moan of pain, his scarred hand going to his cheek.
"If you ever tamper with my phone again," Loki says, lowly, "I will end you." Stephen does not attempt to retaliate, but nor does he look especially guilty.
"You were asleep," he murmurs. "There was no sense in waking you up."
"That isn't your call to make," Loki says, his tone firm and unerring. "You wished to keep me cooling your bed – don't you pretend to me it was to do with letting me sleep, and that false little act, as if you hadn't been the one to silence my phone… You do that again, and I'll flatten this little home of yours to dust."
"You're beautiful when you're angry," Stephen says.
Loki is already walking away.
June 18th, 2012
4:58PM
Loki presses his forehead to Thor's, feeling the warmth of his brother's skin as they embrace in a tight, tight hug. Thor is smiling, softly, and he cups the sides of Loki's jaw – keeping his hands carefully away from Loki's neck, Loki realises. "So cold," Thor murmurs. "So different from the warm little brother I once had."
"More truthful now," Loki replies, softly. "No longer do I need my brother to come and find me in my errant ways, to drag me home."
"I never dragged you," Thor says. "Merely told you when it was time." Loki smiles, patting his brother's cheek.
"I wish it was time now," Loki whispers, and he sees Thor's expression crumble, sees Thor's eyes suddenly wet. Thor holds Loki tight to him, his coldness be damned, and he feels Thor press his lips to his hair and his head, exhaling softly against his scalp.
"I'm sorry, brother," Thor murmurs, his broad hand rubbing against Loki's back. "I can't do that."
"I know," Loki replies. "I know. Thor… You know that I love you?"
"Of course, as I you," Thor assures him, softly. Loki wishes he was stronger than he was, wishes he could ask his brother to stay longer, but… For his benefit? He cannot ask Thor to give up his title of prince regent, simply because Loki misses his brother. Simply because Loki feels fractured, and alone. "I shall write you every week."
"I shall do the same," Loki promises, pressing a kiss to Thor's cheek. "Fare thee well, brother."
"The same to thee, brother," Thor replies, and they break apart.
June 18th, 2012
5:04PM
Diary Entry, June 18th, 2012
The magic Odin has bound me in is not as once I thought. I had quite pushed away the thoughts of my other selves from my mind, avoiding that deep understanding of the multiplicity of myself. It is not something I often dwell on: I like to inhabit one identity at once, and slip from one to the other, but…
Steven Rogers gave me an order as Geren of the Highwastes, and I felt the seiðr within me hesitate.
And yet today, I refused an order, and found it was possible, even as myself, as Loki. Something is afoot here – something has changed in the expanse of my magic. I must analyse it, study it…
Odin has never been a sorcerer of my own skill. Obviously, he has left a loop untied, a stitch unfinished in the spell itself. How to better define the gap in my prison wall? I know not. I know not yet what precisely it is, and yet I have no doubt it will come to me.
So shall these bonds unravel.